Wow it only took eight days to reply! I'm getting faster
Spoiler Alert!
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Originally Posted by TGRF
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Originally Posted by TAF
I'm surprised to see the descriptions as a positive given that prose has never been a strong suit of mine whatsoever. Even the descriptions in this that I like are much too few and far between for a book of this size, and are paltry compared to a lot of other works I've read.
I would submit to you this question: what is the purpose of a description? To enable the reader to see what is happening in his head with more ease. Let me therefore say that - save for a handful of times - I could picture everything perfectly. Therefore, even if your descriptions might not be as 'prose-y' as you'd like, they certainly got the job done, and I would say that they were excellent. Remember: the goal is not fanciful language, but visualization. Your imaginative descriptions were perfectly spaced to aid in that.
I see. I assumed you were referring to prose rather than regular description—this is a positive as that was a problem last story.
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Originally Posted by TGRF
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Originally Posted by TAF
Similarly the praise for the prologue is essentially a negative for me as the author because it also means the book is all downhill from the very beginning. Writing Thomas losing his faith was relatively easy because I too have lost my faith in myself as a writer. But I am glad there's one chapter you unequivocally liked. All of Thomas' hopes, circumstances, and choices in the prologue echo throughout the rest of the entire story.
Well I suppose you can look at that as meaning the story is downhill from there, or as meaning that there is at least one chapter I loved without flaw, break it down, and try to emulate it in the rest of your writing. The process of becoming a better writer is about using criticism to build up, not down. If at any point my criticism has failed to point out an area for improvement, than I would consider myself a failed critic.
Incorporating the elements I think work about the prologue into the rest of the narrative would prove very tricky, as a lot of it comes from the story's isolation and brevity. Those same elements exist in the side stories as well, but they wouldn't work in the main narrative where there's so much going on. I'll look into it, but tbh those short stories are a different animal format-wise.
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Originally Posted by TGRF
Perhaps you could give some examples of the strong actions/choices you had the characters do? I'd be curious to see why I missed those.
I tried to give new characters stronger entrances (such as the first thing Jarek does is kill a monster and then save Thomas, or the first thing Irene does is kill her own boss, or the first thing Gauge does is surrender rather than fight) to have a more memorable impression that might define said character right at the get-go, as well as give existing characters stronger actions/choices in general (such as Jaxson choosing to go back for Stacey despite his state, Brooke's decision to stay with Henry at her own expense, or basically anything Reed does, good or bad).
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Originally Posted by TGRF
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Originally Posted by TAF
One of I risks I knew going in with this was that the characters stop making good decisions. In TMHW they mostly make sound decisions given the circumstances, but that is not the case in this book and it carried problems with the reader even if it was intentional.
Well, questionable decisions can certainly be handled. There was one passage I pointed out where someone finally called a bad decision, and the group spent a minute explaining why they had to do it anyway. Bad decision or not, that passage worked.
Now I don't know if the character's are being caused to make bad decisions (my personal bet is possession, which also explains Header's strange shift in character), but if someone had simply pointed out the decisions, or at least questioned them, things would have been so much better. Now granted, maybe there's a plot reason you can't do that, so as I said this is a relatively minor issue.
It varies based on the situation, if there was something I just hadn't thought of (like the Doctors taking Stacey with them), or instances where the characters do question the bad decision but you still took issue w/ it (like attacking Silvin or entering Cincinnati instead of going around).
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Originally Posted by TGRF
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This is a valid criticism as distances to places are rarely mentioned. Both books are the journey more than the destinations, but still.
I will mention that noting actual distances is merely the easiest way to band-aid this. A better way to actually fix it would be to have a true sense of progression for the group, either with them making progress in unraveling mysteries, defeating enemies, or whatever. Mysteries are unraveled, but it is mostly all through dialogue from Nazar. The heroes mostly just stagger from place to place. At the end, they are just as capable as they were at the beginning.
Fair enough, will try to incorporate this into the next entry.
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Originally Posted by TGRF
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Originally Posted by TAF
I can't say it's not demoralizing spending seven years writing a sequel only to get the same score (if not subtly lower) than the original, though I never expected you to love it so I can't get too upset really.
I've been demoralized my fair share by your ratings, so you're in good company. Seriously though, I think the idea of the story is a good one, there's just a combination of factors (centered around the characters) which keep bringing it down for me. And yes, I am very overly critical, as evidenced by the difference in ratings for TMHW between me and AMIS.
I would again be glad to offer my ideas on how you could make the final entry better, but it would ultimately come down to what I think would work, and may not be indicative of readers as a whole (again, as evidenced by AMIS's rating).
It is regrettable that AMIS isn't around to boost my ego; I was really looking forward to seeing what he would think about the direction of this one. The things he did/didn't care about in the first were greatly different than your own after all, so there is a lot of feedback still potentially unexplored.
~TAF
TAF was the Storyteller...
in THE ENEMY'S LAST RETREAT